All Roads Lead Home. Christine Johnson
water with every step.
Within minutes, Mariah grew accustomed to the chill water—or perhaps numb to it. She walked a few steps, but the sand gave way beneath her feet, making her stagger. The wash of the waves tugged at her feet, burying them deeper in the soft, pebbly sand.
“It’s like quicksand,” she exclaimed.
Hendrick bent over laughing.
“It’s not funny. My feet keep sinking, and my skirt is getting wet. I can hardly walk.”
“Hold still.” In an instant he swept her off her feet and into his arms. “There, you’re safe now.”
Safe? He was holding her. Holding her. Goodness, he’d lifted her as easily as if she were a child. His heart thudded against her side. His shoulders loomed at eye level. He smelled so masculine that she couldn’t think straight. She wanted to lay her head on his shoulder, to sink into his arms and stay there forever.
“Put me down,” she squawked, terrified at the rush of emotion. She couldn’t fall for him again. She couldn’t.
He didn’t listen. Instead of setting her on her feet, he carried her toward the car.
“What are you doing?” she cried. “I told you to put me down.”
But he didn’t. He just kept walking, carrying her away from the shore. She had no choice but to hold on.
“I know how to walk.”
“I know, but the sand’s hot,” he explained when they reached her abandoned shoes. He gently set her down and smoothed the collar of her middy shirt before turning to call for his sister. “Anna, it’s time to go.”
Mariah sat, embarrassed by her reaction to him. “I could have walked.”
He sat beside her. “I didn’t want you to burn your feet.”
She grabbed a stocking. “How could they burn when they’re blocks of ice?” To demonstrate that she hadn’t been affected by the way he held her, she tried to pull the stocking over one of her damp, sandy feet. It went nowhere.
“Here, let me help.” He scrunched up the other stocking so it would fit easily over her toes. “Brush off the sand, and I’ll slip this on.”
She yanked it away from him. “I think I can put on my own stockings.” But the gritty sand clung to her feet as if it had been glued on.
“I’d be glad to help,” he said again.
“I don’t need help.” She yanked on the stockings, even though they bunched in the wrong places and she hadn’t gotten all the sand off her feet. She shoved on her shoes and stood. “There, see?” She strode toward the car, the sand rubbing against her toes with every step.
Hendrick hurried after her. “Let me get the door.”
She’d had quite enough of his help. She was an independent, fully capable woman, not an invalid.
“I’m driving,” she stated, whipping open the driver’s-side door.
He halted, either surprised or dismayed.
She didn’t care. They’d had a deal. No romance. He’d broken it. This was the last time she’d let down her guard around Hendrick Simmons.
Didn’t she feel a thing? Hendrick watched Mariah, confused by her reaction. When he first picked her up, she’d clung to him and even laid her head against his shoulder, but then she’d tensed, as if she realized she wasn’t supposed to enjoy being carried by him. Then she got all defensive when he was just trying to help and stomped off to the car, insisting she had to drive. She didn’t even wait for him to open the door.
He would never understand women.
They ate lunch in silence and reached Chicago that afternoon. Anna hung her head out the window and gawked at the buildings.
“That one has ten stories,” Anna cried out as they entered downtown. “And that one, oh, my.” She drank in the traffic signs and policemen at the street corners, the elevated railway and the crowds of people. “Thousands must live here. How do they know each other?”
“They don’t,” Hendrick said. “Cities have lots of people, but they’re all strangers. I’d rather live where everyone knows each other.”
“Like Pearlman,” Mariah said tartly as she slowed the car for an intersection.
“What’s wrong with Pearlman?” Though he planned to move to Garden City if his interview with Curtiss went well, he rose to his hometown’s defense.
“I didn’t say anything was wrong. Pearlman’s a lovely town. Gabe adores living there.”
“It’s a good place to raise a family,” Hendrick said softly.
She visibly tensed.
So that was it. The woman who helped place orphans didn’t want children of her own. Of course. That’s what she’d tried to tell him at the bridge, that her career came first. What a shame. She’d be a wonderful mother. He’d seen her with Luke, especially, but also with Peter and the other orphans she’d placed. She was a natural parent. Maybe she didn’t want children now, but given time, was there any hope she might change her mind?
He’d test his theory. “I definitely want children.”
She hesitated long enough that he knew he’d struck a nerve. “Children are a blessing, but I’m busy with the Society. Those are the children in my life.”
“I want to wait, too,” Anna chimed in.
He’d forgotten that his sister was there or he would never have brought up such a personal subject.
“First I’m going to see the world,” Anna babbled on. “Look at these buildings. They’re monstrous. Now I can tell everyone I’ve been to Chicago. Is New York like this?”
“It is, only bigger,” Mariah said quickly, apparently eager to change the topic.
“Bigger?” Anna cried. “I want to go there.”
Mariah launched into descriptions of streets and buildings and department stores until he wished they’d be quiet.
“Do you go to parties and dances?” Anna asked Mariah.
“Some, but my college studies took most of my time.”
College. Hendrick stewed. Only the rich could afford college. Anna could never attend, so why bring it up?
“What did you study?” Anna said. “I’d do something exciting like classics and explore Greek ruins.”
He gritted his teeth. Maybe, if Curtiss offered enough for his engine design, he could afford to send her to teacher’s college, but no point in a degree for something frivolous, like classics.
“We should fill the fuel tank and get oil before leaving the city,” he said to change the topic.
Some blocks later, Mariah pulled the car into a filling station. The hulking attendant smirked when he saw Mariah in the driver’s seat. Humiliation coiled in Hendrick’s gut and spread quickly to his fists. Just because he wasn’t driving didn’t make him less of a man.
“Please fill the tank,” Mariah told the attendant, oblivious to the slight.
“Yes, ma’am.” The man spoke politely to her, but he snickered when he stepped to the fuel pump.
Hendrick sprang out of the car, unable to take any more of this. “I’ll check the oil.” He slammed the door and whipped the hood open.
“What’s wrong with you?” Mariah followed him. “The attendant can do that.”
He would not dignify her question with a reply. “You’re low a quart.”